


All Those Secrets You've Been Concealing

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Series: I Want Another First Kiss [34]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Episode: s06e07 Once More With Feeling, First Kiss, M/M, Missing Scene, Musicals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 16:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5548235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A first kiss Xander and Giles might have shared in season six that would have given them something to sing about. (6 of 7)</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Those Secrets You've Been Concealing

The knock at the door was hesitant and decidedly nonrhythmic. Giles smiled wanly to himself. At least that probably meant that the room service waiter wasn't already preparing to join him in a musical number. With luck, he might manage to dine alone and retire early the better to get an early start on day two of researching the musical theatricality that had enveloped the town over the past twenty-four hours and change.

Almost anyone else might have simply called out, “Come in.” But Rupert Giles had never developed that dangerous habit. Instead he rose, cinched up his fluffy white hotel robe, and peered out through the tiny fish-eyed peep hole.

And there he stood. More startling in that moment than any vampire or demon. Fidgeting, ill at ease, and no wonder. The man at the door was not a waiter and what he had brought with him was not a tray. It was Xander Harris, holding a huge bouquet of purple passion flowers.

“If those are for me,” Giles said dryly as he opened the door and Xander hurriedly came inside, “there had better be a very strange explanation.”

“Wha—” Xander started to ask, truly puzzled for a moment. But Giles' not-quite-joke was unsubtle enough that even he could not long avoid comprehension. “Oh, these?” He blushed and even squirmed a little, to the point that Giles began to fear that he actually _had_ brought them for, well, the usual reason that someone brings another person a huge bunch of flowers when no one has died and there is no special occasion at all.

“Oh, uh, no,” Xander stammered, blending clarification and apology. “I found these lying in front of your door. The card says, 'Thanks for a lovely evening. We'll always have Sunnydale. Yours Always, Gunther.'”

Giles narrowed his eyes and attempted a frosty glare with moderate success. But despite himself he did blush just a little. He wasn't ashamed, just... embarrassed by the indignity of having this schoolboy's nose stuck into his very private business, will he or no.

He just felt very strongly about the subject of keeping his private life private, especially from that special subset of Sunnydale Alums whom he couldn't quite help thinking of as his charges, even after all this time. In fact, he felt so strongly about it, that he hardly noticed the subtle but definite support of the unseen orchestra as he began to sing:

♫“It's not that I mind you knowing.”♪

♫“It's not that I hide in shame.”♪

♫“But where this train of thought is going”♪

♫“You won't think of me the same.”♪

By the time he heard Xander take up the thread of the melody and run with it (first echoing the slow, steady flow of his own lines, then moving through a more frantic, uptempo passage) it was too late. They were awash in the sea of music and all they could do was ride the wave until it brought them ashore.

♫“It's not like I'd bring you flowers.”♪

♫“It's nothing I'd care to name.”♪

♫“But these years have been made of hours.”♪

♫“And moments I can't reframe.”♪

♫“It's no secret to me, and it's no mystery ”♪

♫“Why women and men through themselves at your feet.”♪

♫“I don't doubt that it's real, this small flame that I feel”♪

♫“But I know it can't mean too much more than one thing—”♪

Xander paused for one moment, breathless. The two men shared a look of mingled anticipation, shock, and terror, before Xander began again, more slowly, mellifluously.

♫“And stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillll—”♪

Giles couldn't endure Xander enduring this any longer. Forcefully, he sang, pressing a finger to Xander's lips for emphasis:

♫“Hold your breath; bite your tongue.”♪

♫“I'm too old; you're to young.”♪

♫“Too start singing this tune.”♪

♫“And trip over the moon.”♪

♫“Keep your feet on the floor.”♪

♫“Let them walk out my door.”♪

♫“Rush back home to your vengeful briiiiide!”♪

They never found out what the next line might have been. Giles wasn't sure when they had started dancing, or how exactly that had led to falling and tumbling across the bed and into each other's arms, But when Xander stopped his singling with a sudden, forceful, passionate kiss than ran on long and deep, well... That certainly changed his tune.


End file.
